Concept
Organizational Strategy
Organizational strategy is designing a business as a chart of positions, each with one accountable owner and one clear result, before deciding who fills them, even when every box carries your own name.
Most small businesses are organized around people, not around work. Tasks land on whoever is nearest. A friend or relative who joins ends up doing 'a bit of everything.' Then a result goes wrong and nobody can say who owned it. Michael Gerber sees this as a big reason a growing business feels chaotic: when a responsibility is shared, it belongs to no one. The fix is to draw the organization chart for the business you intend to become, not the one you have today. That means a top seat, then marketing, operations and finance, then the positions beneath them. Each box gets the result it owns, the standards it works to and who it reports to. Writing your name in most boxes is fine. You now know which hat you are wearing. When you hire, you hand over a defined box, not a vague helper role.
A real-life example
Lena runs a three-person bakery. Her cousin helps 'wherever needed.' A 120-piece wedding order goes out a day late because everyone assumed someone else had confirmed the date. That evening Lena draws the chart: Orders Manager, Production Manager, Bookkeeper. Her name goes in two boxes and her cousin's goes in Orders. The next slip has one clear owner. The response is a new confirmation checklist instead of an argument.
How to use it
- 1Draw the chart for your business at ten times its size: a top seat, then marketing, operations and finance, then the positions beneath each.
- 2Write a one-line position contract for every box covering the result it owns, the standard it is measured by and who it reports to.
- 3Fill in who holds each box today, even if it is you in most of them. Hand off the box that eats the most of your time with your first hire.